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Pitfalls of coalition warfare part of Bastion probe

WASHINGTON – The only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them, Winston Churchill once said. Churchill's point was that alliances naturally produce friction – consider the squabbles

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WASHINGTON — The only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them, Winston Churchill once said.

Churchill's point was that alliances naturally produce friction — consider the squabbles between Bernard Montgomery and his American allies during World War II. Ultimately, though, the value of an allied force makes the compromises needed to establish working relationships worth the effort.

An extensive report into a deadly surprise attack on Camp Bastion in Afghanistan last year highlights the pitfalls of coalition warfare.

Earlier this week the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Amos, asked for the retirement of two generals, Maj. Gen. Charles "Mark" Gurganus, who was commander of Regional Command Southwest, and Maj. Gen. Gregg Sturdevant, the air wing commander in the region, holding them responsible for gaps in security that allowed 15 Taliban insurgents to breach a fortified base.

The Taliban attack killed two Marines and destroyed or damaged more than a dozen aircraft.

The military has now released hundreds of pages of documents from the investigation, including interviews with the two generals, that formed the basis for Amos' decision to hold the two generals accountable.

Overshadowing much of report is the issue of a relationship between the United States and its British allies on the base and how it might have compromised security.

Under a complex memorandum of understanding, the British remained responsible for security at Camp Bastion and had a separate chain of command from the U.S. side of the base, called Camp Leatherneck. There was no single commander responsible for security over the entire compound.

The arrangement was good for coalition building but it violated a key tenet of warfare: unity of command. Simply put that means that there should only be one top commander on the battlefield.

Gen. James Amos is commandant of the Marine Corps.(Photo: Alex Brandon, AP)

The attack occurred on the British side of the base, which also included the flight line, where American aircraft were based.

Gurganus told investigators he was aware of the bifurcated command structure but he had confidence in the British. The two sides had also made efforts to improve coordination between the two.

"I don't think it's unreasonable in coalition warfare to reach a point where you compromise a couple of absolutes to make sure you have the best arrangement possible," he told investigators.

But clearly there were still some points of friction. One U.S. officer told investigators the arrangement prevented him from inspecting the guard towers on the British base.

An incident in March 2012 exposed some weaknesses in the British-American security agreement. An Afghan worker drove on to the flight line just as then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was arriving for a visit. After that, Gurganus' staff proposed changing the arrangement, but it met resistance at higher headquarters in Kabul and went nowhere.

After the September 2012 attack the memorandum was scrapped and an American was put in charge of security for the entire complex. The British still resisted, Sturdevant told investigators.

"The Brits desperately wanted to be in charge of security, but I told them that we were no longer willing to accept not being in charge of overall security," Sturdevant said. "The attack definitely changed the environment. They knew they had screwed up."

The extensive report and supporting documents paints a picture of commanders juggling multiple responsibilities with sometimes incomplete information – not uncommon in war.

Protecting the base was only one of a slew of responsibilities commanders faced.

Gurganus was overseeing aggressive military campaigns throughout a remote region as the number of U.S. forces were declining rapidly. At the same time, coalition forces were attempting to build the capability of Afghan forces, which would ultimately take the lead in the fight against the Taliban.

When Gurganus and his staff arrived in Afghanistan in March 2012, he commanded nearly 18,000 Marines. By the time he left a year later the number was 7,400.

The investigation concluded that commanders misread intelligence or didn't have enough information to correctly assess the type of threat the base faced.

The intelligence suggested that the main threats were insider attacks, such as the one that occurred when Panetta was arriving, car bombs or rockets fired into the compound. No one expected a well-trained force of Taliban breaching the perimeter in the dead of night.

There had, in fact, been numerous breaches of the outside fence in the months leading up to the attack and video even picked up someone coming inside the perimeter, looking around, and then leaving.

But commanders assumed many of the breaches were people from a nearby village, including children, looking for scrap metal, which was a frequent occurrence.

Commanders were concerned about poppy fields that were expanding right up to the outside perimeter fence. The farmers used runoff from the coalition base for irrigation. They had to lean on Afghan forces to eradicate, however, which could be a slow process.

The Sept. 14 attack fit into none of the main threats they were anticipating. It was a sophisticated Taliban attack, months in the making, that originated in Pakistan. The insurgents wore U.S. Army uniforms and slipped through the fence on a moonless night.

"We were clearly surprised on the night of the 14th," Sturdevant said. "We just weren't expecting that. Not in my wildest imagination could I ever envision that."

Gurganus told investigators in July that he has thought back about the attack numerous times. "There was nothing that caused me to go, 'if I only I'd done this,'" he said. "I've thought about it a hundred times, and I'm not sure given exactly what we knew, exactly what the commanders on the ground knew at the time, that we would have done anything differently."

Amos said recommending retirement for the two officers, who he has served alongside, was one of the hardest decisions he has had to make as commandant. They were friends and have had stellar careers in the Marine Corps.

Gurganus has commanded Marines in Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The report made clear that the two commanders faced a number of challenges and tried to make the right calls with the information they had. Ultimately, though, the military holds commanders accountable for what happens on their watch, regardless.

Amos said he spoke to both men personally about his decision and they accepted graciously.